Call for proposals: Collection on Paranormal cultures

full name / name of organization:

University of Brighton, UK

contact email:

o.jenzen@brighton.ac.uk

Further chapters on specific areas sought for the Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures.

Following the University of Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies conference of 2010 'Paranormal Cultures', (UK) we are editing a large reference work of new research on the paranormal: the Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures. The book will have around 30 chapters written by scholars from the UK, USA and Europe, with many illustrations. It focuses specifically on contemporary and popular manifestations of the paranormal and cultural engagements with the paranormal, rather than the Spiritualism of the Victorian era, or Theosophy, for example, which has been covered elsewhere.
The main objective is to investigate the processes of every day life practices and discourses as well as textual engagements
that have a relation to the discourse of the paranormal. This includes forays into how people relate to the paranormal and why people seek meaning in the realm of the paranormal and how the notion of the paranormal is used to make meaning of
emotional, ideological and epistemological realities.
This book will be a valuable resource for cultural studies, humanities and sociological approaches to the recent
upsurge in cultural engagements with paranormal discourse that has been a growing research focus since the 1990s.

The project is already well established, with many chapters completed or at the editing stage. However, we are looking for contributions of 6,000 words on further material that we would like to include.
Chapters would require a short introduction to the field you are writing in/of the research context, followed by your case study and 2-3 suggested readings to follow up.
The date for submission for these later chapters would be June 1st. However, we would need an abstract sent to us by February 14th please, for us to consider and then to go forward with your idea.
The specific topics or areas that we require further content on are as follows:
1. Hollywood representations of the paranormal (eg. Sixth Sense, The Others, Paranormal Activity etc)

2. The Internet and digital paranormal cultures (paranormal sites and their users)